Guys like Marc-Andre Cliche are tough to grade. He’s a fourth-line center, who got an average of 10 minutes, 34 seconds per game of ice time in the regular season. If I were just grading on the regular season, I would have given Cliche (pronounced “Klish”) a B-minus. But the playoffs took off half a grade. Frankly, he wasn’t great in the series against Minnesota — although he did save a goal, and arguably the game, with a diving interception of a puck in the crease in Game 2.

In seven games against the Wild, Cliche got zero points and was a minus-3. With John Mitchell out with a concussion, Cliche had an opportunity to do more, getting an average of 14:20 per game from Patrick Roy. He didn’t make the most of it.Read more…

The Avs are starting to ramp up talks with several unsigned players, including, my NHL sources say, with at least a couple of the team’s potential unrestricted free agents.
Those potential UFAs are: David Jones, Jay McClement, Cody McLeod, Shane O’Brien and Matt Hunwick.
I can not say with 100-percent certainly who is NOT being negotiated with at all. So, I’m not going to say either way right now who I think they are, but I do know the Avs are talking with them and other unsigned possible RFAs already, which is a good sign for them. The Avs can sometimes wait to the last minute to do these kinds of things, which not always desirable results (Matt Hendricks, Ian Laperriere, etc.). They often do not talk to anybody who goes the UFA route.

Interestingly, one player the Avs have yet to start talking turkey on a new contract yet with is Ryan O’Reilly. My sources say there has yet to be contact between them and his agent, Mark Guy. But I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll be signed at some point. He’s not going anywhere.

Of the UFAs, I think the Avs are definitely interested in bringing McClement back, along with O’Brien. Jones? Unclear still what’s going on there. I think the Avs want to talk and see what it would take, but I make no hard and fast predictions on him coming back right now.

Probably the most amazing, double-taking moment of this preseason came Sept. 22, when, in his first game with the Washington Capitals on a tryout basis, former Avalanche forward Matt Hendricks scored a hat trick in the Caps’ 6-2 win over Columbus. Hendricks quickly went from being a tryout guy to signing a one-year, $575,000 contract with the Caps – a $75K raise over what he made last year with the Burgundy and Blue.
I’m happy for the good-natured Minnesotan, who was a key part of the Avs’ run into the playoffs. Why did the Avs not bring him back, you ask?

A few notes from around the league, to get the week started:
Our old friend, Chris Drury, is out for a few weeks already with the Rangers. Age is creeping up to “Dru”, a gamer to end all gamers. Let’s face it, things haven’t really worked out too well for him with the Rangers since signing that huge contract. They went fairly deep in the playoffs one year, but the rest has been mostly a failure.

Here are my top five picks as perhaps unexpected guys who will get off to hot scoring starts in the NHL. And an Av is one of them.

Could Sheldon Souray be headed for the Rangers? If he does, I can see one more vastly overpaid player laughing at the Rangers for giving him such a deal. The list is longer than the Constitution.

Remember Matt Hendricks? He’s in the camp of the Washington Capitals, under his old coach, Bruce Boudreau.

Remember Tom Preissing? The former Av is now playing in the KHL. What’s Russian for “Boooo?”

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.